Customer Reviews

Titanic Days

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Finally after a decade of limbo Kirsty MacColl's masterpiece "Titantic Days" is available again. Calling it a masterpiece isn't hyperbole. Written in the aftermath (mostly with Mark Nevin but also in collaboration with The Smiths' Johnny Marr)of her divorce, this terrific album stands as MacColl's most complete, compelling album. Ironically, it sold nothing when it was released which is too bad; it needs to be rediscovered by a public starved for quality not quantity; it needs to be reappraised as one of the finest albums of the 90's.

The first album is unaltered; it appears exactly as it did when first released. The original classic 11 tracks are on disc one. From the stunning single "Can't Stop Killing You" to the majestic "Soho Square" and the beautiful "Angel" it still holds up more than a decade later.

The decision to add a second disc is a nice addition for this remastered/reissued classic album. The second disc has a beautiful piano mix of "Angel" (with some sythesizer effects and tamborine also decorating the song)with MacColl's lovely voice the highlight of the song. "Fabulous Garden" an additional track on the single version of "Can't Stop Killing You" would have fit on the original album very well. "King Kong", "Dear John" and "Irish Cousin" were demos that Kirsty worked on wrote/worked on with Mark Nevin. Two live tracks are highlights of the second disc; we get "Miss Otis Regrets" (originally recorded for the album AIDS benefit album RED, HOT & BLUE)and a stunning "Free World" recorded at a concert in 1993 at Solana Beach, California at the Belly Up Tavern. Both appeared again as additional tracks for the single of "Titanic Days". There's also four remixes of the lovely ballad "Angel". Although none of them are essential, they're a nice desert to a wonderful meal of an album.

We also get the original lyrics for the album and an appreciation by frequent collaborator and former Fairport Convention guitarist/songwriter Mark Nevin. He honestly details how they met, fell in, fell out and made up before Kirsty's untimely death. It's a sad world when justice fails to live up to its name. The boaters who killed MacColl when they were in an area restricted to boats should probably have been charged more severely than they were. It was a tragic accident that robbed the world of a unique voice and parent. She's missed.

The Album:
Titanic Days was born out of unfortunate events in the lives of British singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl and her musician pal Mark Nevin (who co-wrote "My Affair," "The One and Only," and "Halloween" on her previous LP, 1991's Electric Landlady). First, both were dropped by their respective labels -- Kirsty was one of many artists cut from Virgin's roster when it was bought out by EMI, and Mark's record deal with BMG ended after the breakup of his band, Fairground Attraction -- and then their respective marriages fell apart.

Indeed, feelings of desolation and desperation run through most of the 7 songs that the pair have written for this record, especially the urgent, jangly opener "You Know It's You," the brooding single "Titanic Days," the story-song "Last Day of Summer," the plaintive ballad "Don't Go Home," and the haunting, half-spoken/half-sung closer "Tomorrow Never Comes." "Big Boy on a Saturday Night" seems out-of-place in this context, but it provides a rare moment of levity, with delightfully nasty put-down lyrics like "You make me laugh, but seriously / I look at you -- what do I see? / A clapped-out Nazi with a blunderbuss." The real high point, though, is the graceful "Soho Square," beginning with images of a freezing, barren winter (as the narrator has been stood up by her self-centered man on her birthday), and slowly building up to an imagined future summertime scene (as the narrator hopes to have her man waiting for *her* someday).

Of course, the remaining tracks fit very well into the album's generally dark vibe, especially the ominous single "Can't Stop Killing You," which tells a tale of domestic violence, and the hypnotic "Just Woke Up"; even the playful "Bad" finds its newly single narrator wanting to celebrate her independence by engaging in some risky behavior ("a brief encounter in a stolen car / A hand on my buttock in a Spanish bar"). With a few exceptions (such as the slinky jazz style of "Bad" and the straight-up rock 'n' roll of "Big Boy..."), most of the tunes here are in the mode of polished adult-contemporary pop. Still, it would be hard to imagine MacColl's hard-hitting, deeply personal songs sharing the early-to-mid-'90s airwaves with safer fare by the likes of Mariah Carey and Celine Dion, even if this record had been a commercial success (which, sadly, it was not).

The Extras:
Titanic Days (already issued in the US and Australia by different labels in late 1993) was picked up by ZTT for distribution in Kirsty's native UK in early 1994; alas, this was only a one-album deal, and she wouldn't get to record another until about 6 years later. Earlier this year, ZTT gave this under-appreciated gem a special deluxe reissue, preserving the original issue's 11-track running order on one disc, and adding a second disc with 12 bonus tracks. Among these extras are 9 B-sides (including 5 varied mixes of TD's lush, gorgeous lead-off single "Angel," and live versions of "Free World" and "Miss Otis Regrets"), as well as a trio of interesting demos from the TD sessions: the jaunty "King Kong," written from the viewpoint of the great ape's wife back home in jungle; "Dear John," a stark ballad in which MacColl explicitly addressed her split from longtime husband/producer Steve Lillywhite; and "Irish Cousin," a sweet (but never sentimental) ode to a deceased loved one.

The Curse is that she'll record no more. What an amazingly honest artist. Almost any genre was putty for her hands. What honesty, character and comedy embedded in the best music. Lets hope for justice for Kirsty, and do yourself justice: Listen carefully to Soho Square and weep. Laugh at Bad. The dramatic sensual imagery in Titanic days! You cant get much closer to Kirsty than this album, but her later happy salsa days are a good way to remember her. But who need's her memory? The angel is here now, right?

It took me a while to really cotton to this album (one of Kirsty's last.) On first listening, it seemed a bit treacly, a bit too soft and sentimental compared to some of her other material. But it grew on me; the album's overall low-key tone has the songs blending together so well, it takes a few listens for them to come into their own. But this has some of Kirsty's finest work as a songwriter, and the production by Vic Van Vugt (with Steve Lilywhite handling "Angel" and MacColl and Nevin producing "Tomorrow Never Comes") is suitably rich. The title track is, true to its name, a real epic of a number, a song about a mad and probably doomed affair backed by a driving beat and swelling strings. "Soho Square" is both melancholy and exhilirating, and there are a couple of good, savage up-tempo numbers in "Can't Stop Killing You" and "Big Boy on a Saturday Night." "Angel" and "Just Woke Up" have wonderfully surreal qualities, and the final, funereal "Tomorrow Never Comes" is exceptionally powerful. Kirsty's approach to this album reminds me somewhat of newer British singers like Dido- perhaps a sign of how much influence this underrated artist actually had. One can certainly hope the music world is beginning to learn from her.

I was lucky enough to have the late great Kirsty MacColl as a friend. We met in 1994, and she was as sarcastic and fun and witty and beautiful as you might imagine. I didn't know she was a singer when we met, and when I went round to her house for dinner one night, she played the advance copy of "Galore" whilst we enjoyed a great Indian takeout dinner and looked at the pictures for the album. She had a copy of "Titanic Days" and gave it to me....I went back to the States and fell in love! Her first track, "You Know It's You" is one of my all-time favorite Kirsty songs, and "Soho Square" is a masterpiece. There is indeed a bench in Soho Square dedicated to her memory now. I sat there one afternoon last November, while "my feet froze in the winter air," and the church bells rang and the pigeons flew around, and said a prayer of gratitude to whomever and whatever force gave me the gift of this woman in my life.

Forgive the sentimentality. It would have made her cringe! As an interesting side note, when I asked her long ago what her favorite of her albums was, she said it was "Kite." Check that one out as well!

I had most of Kirsty's music on CD including the original release of Titanic Days from 1994 but when I saw this and realized the bonus features, I just about peed myself. No kidding. (Like you don't believe me).

Kirsty was one of the best and most prolific of all female musicians to hit the scene. Unfortunately she only released her own music sporadically as she spent most of her time as wife and mother, but when she would come out with something, I was there. This is by far my favorite album she ever did, full of angst and pain, she called it her "divorce album" and now not only is it in pristine sound with liner notes, there is a whole second disc with remixes, bonus cuts never released and a few other fun stuff.

Buy this album before its too late - you'll love the vindictive bastard who terrorizes his victims in "Can't Stop Killing You", and the angst ridden title track, the cool soothe of "Just Woke Up" the angry pain of "So Ho Square" and the sarcasm that oozes from Kirsty in fast and furious delivery like a female and slightly happier Morrissey.

Although I already owned pretty much everything I could get my hands on of Kirsty MacColl's back catalogue, "Titanic Days" had eluded me. When I saw that it had been remastered and re-released with a bonus second disk, I was off to the record shop before you could say "sorry, thanks Kevin Rudd".

This is a fabulous record, by various turns deep, shallow, sad, funny, beautiful and ugly. It also makes Kirsty's early death even more tragic.

Do yourselves a favour and buy this, then weep for what has been lost. I did.

Sorry to be so negative, but I find that she has a limited vocal range. Some of her lyrics are good, some mediocre. Some of the early tracks are over produced - string symphony and all. I bought this because I like "Just Woke Up" from this CD, and "These Shoes" from another. With the high reviews here, and it being digitally re-mastered, I thought it might be a undiscovered treasure. Nope.